Those in a tizzy about the Common Core educational curriculum and testing standards may have to stew in their own juices now that the General Assembly is done for the year and the 2014 election campaigns have begun.
Even though the legislature did not act to discontinue Common Core, it was debated right up until the last day of the session. But we have polled the issue with Georgians, and it’s not much of an exaggeration to say most of them just don’t care. The sound and fury about Common Core seems to be a ‘controversy’ only within the public education and political communities.
In a statewide poll conducted March 12 by InsiderAdvantage and opinionsavvy.com, only about one out of three respondents expressed an opinion. Twenty percent favored Common Core and 15 percent opposed it. More tellingly, 54 percent said they didn’t know enough about the issue to even weigh in, and another 11 percent were undecided.
Those numbers should tell Republicans and Democrats alike that the issue of Common Core isn’t going to be deciding either primary elections in May or the general election in November.
Among the poll respondents identifying themselves as Republicans, 11 percent favor Common Core, 20 percent oppose it, and 69 percent either didn’t consider themselves informed enough to have an opinion, or were undecided.
Among Democrats, 33 percent favor it, 7 percent oppose it, and 60 percent were either undecided or didn’t feel they knew enough to say one way or the other.
The poll sampled 486 people and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent. The data were weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation.
